Number 47 - Wednesday, August 13, 2008

____________________________________________

a periodical newsletter from
MARS HILL AUDIO

____________________________________________

What We’re Reading

Your Subscription Information

That’s why they call them “browsers”
Lately, a lot of what I'm reading has been concerned with how I’m reading, with whether other people are reading at all, and with how reading influences our inner lives, both our brains and our souls. Nicholas Carr’s Atlantic essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” (July/August 2008) is an elegant exploration of some of the themes explored by media ecologists. Carr has the feeling, he confesses, that the way he thinks has been changing. It’s increasingly hard for him to concentrate on extended arguments presented in books for any sustained period. “I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text.” He reports that many friends and colleagues report the same sensation, and he's convinced that the cause behind this effect is all the time he spends online.

As Carr describes it, the way knowledge is organized and acquired online encourages certain mental habits while discouraging others. And it reinforces a specific model of human knowing, “a belief that intelligence is the output of a mechanical process, a series of discrete steps that can be isolated, measured, and optimized. In Google's world, the world we enter when we go online, there's little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed." . . . . [Read more about multitasking, attention-deficit problems, and the relationship between collectedness and prayer]

Please review the information below and send us corrections either by replying to this e-mail or by using our online address change form.

Cust No. [id#]

Name and Address
[full name]
[company]
[Address1]
[Address2]
[city,state,zip]
[country]

Subscription status: [status]

(A=active, P=Invalid mailing address; please send us a correction; if C, S, X, or B please see this)

Your subscription will expire with Volume [last] on [media] (C=Cassette, D=CD, B=Both, M=MP3). See this chart to find the date of your last issue. The current issue is Vol. 91, July/August 2008. If your subscription is about to expire you may renew online (using our secure server) or call us at 1.800.331.6407.

For questions about your subscription please call us at 1.800.331.6407 or e-mail us at soundthinking@marshillaudio.org.

Solzhenitsyn Remembered

Russian writer and political prophet Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died on August 3rd. In a life that moved from obscurity to the Nobel Prize and back to obscurity, Solzhenitsyn played a dramatic role in alerting the West to the realities of life under the dehumanizing Communist regime. MARS HILL AUDIO has featured five interviews about Solzhenitsyn’s life and work since 1993, and we have just released a special Anthology containing those pieces along with some previously unheard material featuring Solzhenitsyn scholar, Edward E. Ericson, Jr.. Entitled The Christian Humanism of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, this 74-minute Anthology is available on CD or as an MP3 download. Also of interest is veteran journalist David Aikman’s reading of his moving essay, “One Word of Truth: A Portrait of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,” one of our MP3-only MARS HILL AUDIO Reprints. Look here for more information.

What’s Coming Your Way

All editions of Volume 91 of the Journal have been shipped. Volume 92 is now being edited and MP3 subscribers should be able to hear it in about 3 weeks. The guests on that issue will include:

Richard M. Gamble on The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on What It Means to Be an Educated Human Being

Peter Leithart on Solomon among the Postmoderns

Craig Holdrege on Beyond Technology: The Barren Promise of Genetic Engineering

Stephen J. Nichols on Jesus in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ

Jake Halpern on Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths behind America's Favorite Addiction

Bill Vitek on The Virtues of Ignorance: Complexity, Sustainability, and the Limits of Knowledge

Other guests in the wings for future issues include Alan Jacobs on Original Sin: A Cultural History; James A. Herrick on Scientific Mythologies: How Science and Science Fiction Forge New Religious Beliefs; and Sheila O’Connor-Ambrose on Elizabeth Fox-Genovese’s Marriage: The Dream That Refuses to Die

Eugene Peterson on
Living Our Theology

Pastor/theologian Eugene Peterson is in the middle of an ambitious writing project: five meaty books on "spiritual theology." By that term, he wants to call our attention to the fact that true spirituality always begins in theology, the revelation and understanding of God, and must always be lived out in the dynamic circumstances of our lives. The first of those books, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, was published in 2005. In anticipation of the publication of the fourth volume sometime this Fall (Tell It Slant, Eerdmans), MARS HILL AUDIO has released a 70-minute Conversation called Dancing Lessons: Eugene Peterson on Theology and the Rhythms of Life. Look here for more information.

Back to School Sale

We have done a number of interviews over the years with guests whose books have analyzed the state of higher education (e.g., George Marsden, Robert Jenson, Daniel Ritchie, Mark Bauerlein, Alvin Kernan, Marion Montgomery, and Arthur Holmes to name a few). What students learn and how they learn it is a very significant factor in the shaping of contemporary culture. So we're eager to get a lot of students thinking Christianly about their vocation as students, about the subjects they are studying, and about the vocations they will embrace upon graduation.

There are probably some college students in your life: children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, neighbors and ex-babysitters. We’d like to ask you to help us get the rich resources MARS HILL AUDIO produces onto their iPods, into their ears, and finally into their minds and hearts.

So we’re putting the MP3 edition of our bimonthly Journal on sale. For the unprecedented low price of $20, you can give a new one-year subscription to an undergraduate or graduate student ($40 for a two-year subscription). You’ll need to use the promo code BTS08 (that's zero-eight) when ordering to qualify for this special rate. Order online here, or call us at 1.800.331.6407. (Please note that this rate does not apply to renewals or to people who are not students, no matter how much they wish they could be.)

Enabling students to be a MARS HILL AUDIO subscriber will expose them to hours of thoughtful conversation that will give them perspectives on their university experience they are unlikely to acquire elsewhere. As the credit card commercial reminds us, some things are priceless.

“St. Augustine described the academic culture he entered as a young man as ‘a caldron of illicit loves’ (Confessions 3.1). Today’s university environment—as Tom Wolfe’s recent novel I am Charlotte Simmons has shown—is no different, perhaps even worse! How can a Christian student not only keep from being boiled alive but even thrive in their challenging college contexts? One answer is Mars Hill Audio! It’s not a cure-all, but a subscription to the bimonthly audio journal and exposure to other MHA products will go a long way to helping students become critical, coherent, Christian thinkers who hold fast to their confession of faith and serve as ambassadors of God’s kingdom with integrity on their campuses. Students shouldn't go to college or grad school without Mars Hill Audio in their backpacks!

—David Naugle, professor of philosophy, Dallas Baptist University, and author of Reordered Love, Reordered Lives: Learning the Deep Meaning of Happiness (Eerdmans, Fall 2008)

Various Details, Disclaimers, etc.

From time to time, MARS HILL AUDIO may send you an e-mail about your subscription (such as renewal offers) and information that may be of interest about subjects we discuss on the Journal and on our other products. Under no circumstances will we sell, rent, or give away your e-mail address to third parties. For further details on how we use your personal information see MARS HILL AUDIO's privacy notice.

Given the reality of too much information and too little time, we understand if you'd rather not receive Addenda. To stop delivery use our online form, or reply to this e-mail and type "unsubscribe" in the subject line and your last name and zip code in the message body.

P. O. Box 7826 Charlottesville, Virginia 22906
Phone 1.800.331.6407 • Fax 1.434.990.9090
addenda@marshillaudio.org www.marshillaudio.org